Kemi Badenoch launched a “north London” jibe in her first Prime Minister’s Questions as she put Foreign Secretary David Lammy in the spotlight for calling Donald Trump a “woman-hating Neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.
The new Tory leader asked Sir Keir Starmer to apologise for the 2018 remark by Mr Lammy about now president-elect Trump if he himself had not done so already.
After the PM declined to do so, she said: “Mr Speaker the Prime Minister did not distance himself from the remarks made by the Foreign Secretary.
“And I’m very sure that President Trump will soon be calling to thank him for sending all of those north London Labour activists to campaign for his opponent.”
London does have large local Labour parties so it is entirely possible that some of their activists went to the US to work on Kamala Harris’ campaign, as being encouraged more widely by at least one senior figure in the party.
But asked how many “north London Labour activists” had gone over to America, or if her comments were just a pop at north London, Ms Badenoch’s press secretary responded, in a light-hearted way: “It was just a pop at north London.”
A number of senior Labour figures have lived, or still do, in north London including Sir Tony Blair, Sir Keir Starmer, Alastair Campbell, Lord Mandelson, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and Ed Miliband.
And in recent years, Tories have increasingly started to use “north London” as a somewhat derogatory shorthand for Left-leaning, liberal and possibly woke.
As Prime Minister, Boris Johnson took a swipe at the Islington set in his Tory party conference speech three years ago, even though he had previously lived in the borough.
His successor Liz Truss railed in her conference speech against the “anti-growth coalition’…adding: “They taxi from north London townhouses to the BBC studio to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo.”
And her successor Rishi Sunak challenged Sir Keir at the Despatch Box in October 2022: “I know the Right Hon. and Learned Gentleman rarely leaves north London, but if he does, he will know that there are deprived areas in our rural communities, in our coastal communities…”
The Conservatives now have zero MPs left in Inner London, including the part of north London that they seemingly mock.
At her first PMQs, Ms Badenoch grilled the PM on Mr Lammy, MP for Tottenham in north London, previously calling Trump a “woman-hating Neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”.
Sir Keir responded: “The Foreign Secretary and I did meet President-elect Trump just a few weeks ago for dinner for about a couple of hours, and we discussed a number of issues of global significance. It was a very constructive exercise.”
In the final lap of the White House race, Trump alleged that the “Far-Left” Labour Party in Britain was interfering in the US election, a claimed which was flatly rejected by ministers.
But his campaign filed a complaint with US federal election officials, claiming the Labour Party had “made, and the Harris campaign has accepted, illegal foreign national contributions”, allegations which were denied.
The complaint appeared to be partly based on a social post by Sofia Patel, Head of Operations at the Labour Party, which stated: “I have nearly 100 Labour Party staff (current and former) going to the US in the next few weeks heading to North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
“I have 10 spots available for anyone available to head to the battleground state of North Carolina - we will sort your housing...”
Labour said the activists were acting as individuals not for the party.
